Former Police Official To Return As Consultant

April 21, 1998|By MIKE McINTIRE; Courant Staff Writer

The state is planning to award a $40-an-hour consulting contract to a recently retired state police lieutenant colonel for his help in implementing a long-overdue upgrade of the state police communications system.

Matthew Tyszka, one of several top state police officials who left in January during a shake-up in the Department of Public Safety, will return as a consultant after a vendor has been chosen to install the new system, public safety Commissioner John Connelly said Monday.

A multiagency committee weighing bids from vendors recommended that Tyskza be hired back because, as the top administrative officer at the state police, he was intimately involved in the radio system project, Connelly said.

``I was informed by the committee that Tyszka is the person who is the most knowledgable about the project,'' he said. ``I was told that by bringing him back in a consulting role, it would expedite things.''

Tyszka could not be reached for comment.

The Rowland administration's practice of hiring outside consultants as ``durational project managers'' has drawn the ire of state labor unions, who say that it is an unnecessary expense and takes work from full-time employees. But state police union President Robert Veach said that the communications system project was so complex, it justified giving the assignment to Tyszka.

``I'd be remiss if I didn't say that he's probably the best person for this job,'' Veach said. ``His heart was really in it when he was here, and it would take too long to train someone else in all the issues, so I think it's a good choice.''

Attempts to replace the antiquated system now used by the state police have dragged on for years, and the expected cost has ballooned from $52 million seven years ago to upward of $100 million. Two large communications companies, Motorola and MFS Network Technologies, are competing for the contract on the final phase of the three-stage project.

The project recently hit another speed bump, when the job of picking a vendor was switched from the state Department of Administrative Services to the newly created Department of Information Technology. The committee reviewing bids might make a recommendation to the information technology department as early as the end of the week, said committee Chairman Alan Mazzola, who is a deputy commissioner of administrative services.

``We on the committee are still in the process of doing due diligence on the companies with bids in,'' Mazzola said. ``This is a very technical, very complicated [project].''